Background: Pneumococcus lead to various kinds of invasive disease such as pneumonia, otitis media, meningitis, bacteremia and so on. It has been a great threat to children under 5. A new 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) with carrier tetanus toxoid and diphtheria toxoid was developed by MINHAI, aiming to prevent pneumococcus infection. In this study, we reported the safety and immunogenicity of MINHAI PCV13 in Chinese children aged from 7 months to 5 years old.
Methods: A randomized, double-blinded, parallelized phase III clinical trial was operated in 900 participants. Haemophilus influenzae type B conjugate vaccine (Hib) served as negative control. PCV13 and Hib were intramuscular injected to participants at a ratio of 2:1. Local and systemic adverse events (AEs) and severe adverse events (SAEs) were recorded to evaluate the safety of PCV13. Blood samples were collected before and after immunization for the detecting of serotype-specific anti-polysaccharide immunoglobulin (Ig)G and opsonophagocytosis assay (OPA). The proportion of IgG concentration ≥ 0.35 μg/mL (IgG positive rate), IgG geometric mean concentration (GMC), OPA geometric mean titer (GMT), and other indicators were analyzed to evaluate the immunogenicity of PCV13.
Results: During the study period, no PCV13 associated SAE happened. Incidences of several AEs in PCV13 groups were higher than the Hib groups, but most of them were mild or moderate. For all 13 serotypes, IgG and OPA indicators of the PCV13 groups were generally superior to the Hib groups, and the differences were mostly statistically significant, which indicates that MINHAI PCV13 can effectively induce pneumococcal specific antibody.
Conclusion: The study demonstrates that MINHAI PCV13 has sufficient immunogenicity and safety in Chinese children aged from 7 months to 5 years old.
Clinical trial registration: NCT02494999.
Keywords: Immunogenicity; MINHAI PCV13; Pneumococcus; Safety.
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